Debra Harrell works at a McDonald’s in North Augusta, SC. During
summer break, she brought her daughter to work with her, where
the 9-year-old played on a laptop that “Harrell had scrounged
up the money to purchase,” Reason.com reports. The laptop
was stolen during a home break-in, leaving the daughter nothing
to do while sitting at the fast-food restaurant.

So the girl asked her mother to drop her off at the park to play,
instead.

Harrell said yes, bought her daughter a cell phone, and sent her
to play at Summerfield Park. That park contains a spray pad,
playground, plenty of shade and a free play area, according to
the North Augusta Star.

On her third day there, an adult asked the 9-year-old where her
mother was. When the girl responded that her mom was at work, the
adult called the police.

Authorities declared the girl “abandoned,” and arrested
Harrell, who confessed to leaving her daughter alone in the park.

According to the incident report, the girl says she would go to
the McDonald's inside a Walmart for lunch, which is about a mile
and a half walk from the park where she was found.

"What if a man would have came and just snatched her because
you have all kinds of trucks that come up in here so you really
don't know," park visitor Tonya Cullum, who works at a
childcare center, said to
WJBF.

Another woman at the park also condemned Harrell’s decision.
"You cannot just leave your child alone at a public place,
especially. This day and time, you never know who's around. Good,
bad, it's just not safe,” Lesa Lamback said.

"I understand the mom may have been in a difficult situation,
not having someone to watch the child, but at the same time,
you've got to find somebody."

Harrell has been charged with unlawful conduct towards a child,
and her daughter is now in the custody of the Department of
Social Services.

Online, some are criticizing the South Carolina authorities for
going too far.

Harrell gives her daughter “the freedom to play at the
neighborhood park while she works at a McDonald’s restaurant to
support her family. For her efforts, Ms. Harrell was locked in a
cage and her daughter was taken into the custody of the
Department of Social Services,” the blog Police
State USA said. “The unsupervised play took place at a
location specifically designed for children and for safety, and
yet it still turned into an incident that may ruin a woman’s life
and break apart a family.”

“Perhaps the busybodies would prefer it if the mother
unnecessarily lodged her 9-year-old into a daycare center that
would absorb most or all of the wages she would earn during the
course of a day at work,” the blog continued. “Or,
better yet, quit working and just collect welfare checks.”

Others scoff at the “stranger danger” fear overwhelming the
country in general, and this case in particular.

“While the term ‘missing child’ may conjure up visions of
malevolent, trench-coated men luring children into their cars
with candy or Pokémon cards, the reality is much different,”
Benjamin Radford wrote in his book Media Mythmakers: How
Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us. “The vast
majority of ‘missing’ children are taken by family members, often
when one divorced parent absconds with a child during legally
sanctioned visitation.”

Radford notes in a Discovery News column that only 3.1 percent of
cases handled by the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children between 1990 and 1995 were abductions by strangers. In
2000, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency released a
report that said more than 75 percent of kidnappings were
committed by family members of acquaintances of the child.

Dorothy Roberts, a professor of law, sociology, and civil rights
at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Shattered
Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, told
Slate, “South Carolina's child welfare law is actually
more specific than most, but still doesn't specify the
age—’supervision appropriate to the child's age and development.’
But how does the judge/jury determine what's appropriate? I don't
know of any law that specifies the age or the precise nature of
failure to supervise.”

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic says that North Augusta
authorities put the family - especially the daughter - into a
worse situation by placing Harrell in custody and the girl with
Social Services.

“By arresting this mom (presumably causing her to lose her
job) and putting the child in foster care, the state has caused
the child far more trauma than she was ever likely to suffer in
the park, whatever one thinks of the decision to leave her
there,” Friedersdorf
wrote. “Even if the state felt it had the right to
declare this parenting decision impermissible, couldn't they have
given this woman a simple warning before taking custody?”

“The state's decision is coming at a time when it is
suffering from a shortageof foster families, as well as a child
protective services workforce so overwhelmed that serious child
abuse inquiries are regularly closed in violation of
policy,” Friedersdorf added.